Iman Shumpert

Oh man, no rest for the wicked! Speaking of wicked, oh man quick shout out to the Wicked Weed Funkatorium, that brewery rocked! But yeah, an absolutely amazing slate to catch me back up on the daily notes, with 4 overtimes last night. Including a super size me doubler in Miami! Most of the other games stayed close too, and 20 of the 22 teams in action last night topped 100 points. Fantasy orgasm! And leading the charge on such a big-and-tall NBA night was of course Isaiah Thomas! Career-high 44 points for IT2/3, putting up a 4/3rd’s of a full line of 44/3/6/1/1 on 10-16 FG (7-10 3PTM, 17-17 FT) including a big three in extra time in the OT win.

I’m just glad this groin thing got worked out! …That sounded wrong… If you have a smaller groin muscle, does it heal faster?! I’m not saying he doesn’t have a kick stand down there with a line like this, but just wondering! After semi-breaking out last year (well he was only 2/3 better than his career year in 13-14 for the Kings), IT2/3 has taken an even further step up – scoring 26.6 PPPG, upping the FT volume to 8.8/per at 90% (remember when he was like 70% the first few weeks, that changed quick!), and even though the steals are only at 0.9, he’s drastically cut his TO rate to only 2.2 despite all the added USG. After a slow start due to injuries, the Celtics look like a pretty tough team at full strength right now, and maybe IT2/3 can lead this squad into a deep run. I’ll be cheering for them! (cough, REL bias, cough…) Here’s what else happened on an action-packed Tuesday night of Holiday Season basketball:

Peter here, back from a work trip in Jamaica. JB was right when I needed to escape the cold of the Wizards losing season. Maybe they will bring back JaVale McGee and Javaris Crittenton!?!? One can only hope.

Fortunately, the Wizards were off on Tuesday so that meant I got to watch actually good teams, including an overtime game in Phoenix. Here’s your Tuesday recap:

What’s up Razzballers?!? I’m back and will be handling the daily recaps from Tuesday night this season. We had a total of 9 games so let’s get to it!

Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, and LeBron James – Whenever the Rockets are in town, you know that fantasy stat lines are going to be great for both teams, with the increased pace of play. The Cavaliers were the beneficiaries of the Rockets’ matchup and all the main guys delivered. Kevin Love posted 24 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 block; Irving scored 32 points with 4 threes; and James nearly messed around and got another triple double, finishing with 19/13/8. They played almost as well as their costumes from James’ yearly Halloween party. Don’t forget the shoutouts to the Warriors!

J.R. Smith – Smith knocked down 5-11 from downtown to finish with 15/3/2. Iman Shumpert (8 points, 2 steals, and 2 threes) seems to after suffering a concussion from opening night, but the steals just aren’t enough to help fantasy owners, except for the deepest of leagues.

Holy schnike, what an opening set of games! And what a night for Believeland! The Cavs get to raise their banners and get their ring pops to open the 2016-17 NBA Season, then top it off by playing a disjointed group of SUPER streetballers that a high school team might be able to beat. Really, Knicks?! 17 assists to 18 turnovers?! Just an absolute collapse by New York after a nice 2nd quarter run. I guess they’re going to end up going 115-1… Then a mere 50 feet away, the Windians pick up game 1 in the World Series, shutting out the Cubs 6-0. The dude who wrote Major League couldn’t have even foreseen this!

After seeing what LeBron James did last night, it made me want to link MAC’s comment on our staff picks article. Of course I’m overreacting to one game, but man did Bronny Bron look hungry from some MVPness (be sure to say that word out loud). 19/11/14/0/1 for his first career Opening Night tripdub, as the Cavs stand-n-shooters all hit their threes boosting the dimes. Monster dunks early and often, but still had his deficiencies in FT (1-2), treys (0-3) and TO (4). If Cleveland can keep rolling like this, and the MVP talk remains clamorous, we all know we need to be shopping him in a month or two. As we mentioned a few times in the offseason, his schedule in the H2H Playoffs (or at the end of the Roto season) is fraught with DNP landmines. I got The King in one of my RCLs, and if he’s still around by the All-Star Break, I have a feeling I’m going to have trouble dealing him away. But others in your league are likely a little less competent with foresight and don’t read Razzball, even though it’s a Shakespearean Tragedy! So hopefully in those leagues, you’ll be able to capitalize. Who knows, in Razzball leagues, maybe the hate and talk of trading him will create a buying opportunity! And maybe even the Knicks will turn it all around and fight the Cavs for the best record in the East… Hah, now we’re getting into some super crazy talk! Here’s what else went down across the first 3 NBA Openers last night:

Coaches for teams locked into the post-season are only too happy to rest their starters, as evidenced Tuesday by LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka all receiving healthy DNPs.

Coaches for teams destined for the lottery are exercising extreme caution with future core players, as seen last night with the Nets’ Rondae Hollis-Jefferson & Thaddeus Young getting a precautionary rest day, and franchise center Brook Lopez sitting for the entire second half of a blowout loss.

Even teams not in action on Tuesday were making headlines by shutting down players or announcing their plans to rest star players periodically as the 2015-2016 season draws to a close. DeMarcus Cousins, Rudy Gay, Rajon Rondo, Danilo Gallinari, Ryan Anderson, and Jrue Holiday have all been added to the “shutdown watch” list. (And in Jrue’s case, you can officially stick a fork in him. He’s done.)

Additionally, DeMarre Carroll suffered a setback in his recovery from knee surgery and won’t be of use to fantasy players until next year, Nikola Vucevic can’t get cleared to return from what was believed to be a mild groin strain, and the starting Philly frontcourt of Nerlens Noel & Jerami Grant is going to be treated with kids’ gloves due to knee injuries.

It’s bad, folks. It’s real, real bad.

Thankfully for fans of the NBA and fantasy owners grinding through the final days of their season, a select few professional basketball players did, in fact, decide to earn their pay checks last night. Let’s take a look at who shined brightest, who fell short of expectations, and who else made waves on a six-game Tuesday slate.

That was the last time I saw a Butler as mechanical as Jimmy Butler… “He’s more machine now, than man!” Well, that was more a bartender, but ya know… Godzilla returned from a pretty scary knee injury faster than I thought, going 24/11/6/1/0 in 34 minutes Saturday night exactly a month after “straining” his knee. I’m sorry, when I hear nonspecificity with a knee injury, it’s scarier to me than realizing Deebo from Friday would lead our presidential candidates right now. “WHY THE HELL IS IT EATING ALL THE SATELLITES!?” Future came sooner than we thought on that one… Focus, JB! Aziz, light! Godzilla did have some warts with the 5 TO and fouling out (actually the first time he’s fouled out in his career!), but when you’re a lizard-beast born from nuclear winter, it’s tough to have a blemish free outing! I preached caution in trying to buy Buckets low, so hopefully you were bolder than me. More daring. Basically let’s hope you treated this like a giant Dorito, while I was a tasteless vegan vegetable straw. Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy hoops action, plus The 7 Ahead for week 19 (last week of the regular season!!!!):

After showing up to Friday’s game against the Lakers in a Slayer shirt, Russell Westbrook is trying to show he’s heavy even though he looks like an outcast from an 80s version of Annie. Are those leggings?! And I guarantee whatever he’s listening to isn’t Reign in Blood… Westy is always trying to be fashion-y, but while he spent Friday night and Saturday cutting holes in some other band’s T-Shirt for his next statement, he overlooked the Blazers and The Omen! Damian Lillard just went mad ham on Westbrook, going 31/7/9/2/0 with 8 treys, including 5 down the stretch for a comeback win. This was after going rainbow on the Warriors Friday night for 40/3/10/2/2 and 6 treys. Hopefully these stats don’t lie, and the plantar fascia is healed up for Lillard to be healthy the rest of the way. However, it is a concern as the Blazers have shown caution holding him out so long and they’re obviously not a playoff team. Hell, they even sat C.J. McCollum with no injury at all! If you’re a top playoff team with great PG stats, I might ride this Omen streak a few more weeks then sell to try to minimize some risk. A big argument in my high Lillard rank was his durability, but with a lingering injury like plantar fascia, it could easily crop back up by late-March and April and cost us games. Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy hoops action, and The 7 Ahead for week 12:

On an unusually quiet Tuesday night in the NBA that saw only four games, the most remarkable item is just how unremarkable everything was. Truth be told, I watched a lot more of the Republican debate on CNN than I did professional basketball. (I’ll withhold political commentary for the most part as Razzball isn’t the appropriate forum, but holy heck is the RNC ever in a pickle.)

The usual suspects (James Harden, LeBron James, DeMarcus Cousins) were all solid for their owners, but it’s not like somebody dropped a 40-burger. Nobody poured in a ton of 3-pointers or threw a massive block party. There were no catastrophic injuries (thankfully) and no statement performances. Just a whole lot of “meh.” You can actually count on one hand the number of players who even saw 36 minutes.

Each of the two early games were decided by a dozen points and offered little in the way of drama or uncertainty about the outcome. The late games followed suit as the Greg Monroe-less Bucks got creamed by the Los Angeles Kobes, while Sacramento took care of Houston by 10 in a matchup of what might be the two most unhappy rosters in the league. Only four of the eight teams even managed to hit the century mark.

I guess what I’m ultimately trying to say is that nobody on Tuesday jumped up and said, “Hey Matty! I want the lead. I deserve the lead!” So take notice, NBA – the lead is not simply given, it must be earned. Be better than Donald Trump, basketball.

Woooooooooooo! I don’t need to say much more than that, other than what about this weather here on the East Coast over the weekend?! I got friggin’ sunburnt! At a football game in mid-December!

While we continue to watch history for the Panthers franchise, we witnessed history come to an end Saturday night, with the Warriors losing at Milwaukee to move to 24-1. Those fans wearing the 24-1 shirts were ballsy!

Most of them don’t look like they have undershirts, they would be pretty stupid-looking if they lost! Now I’m no fan of the Warriors (look at their paltry .960 win % vs. my Panthers 1.000! – and I don’t mean that to sound like I’m not a fan, I don’t really have a big home-team fandom), so during this whole streak and its impact on real-life NBA, I’ve been more obsessed with the fantasy stuff. Ya know, Stephen Curry‘s 3s and Draymond Green being a PF deity. In that 2OT triller against the Celtics, DrayDray went 24/11/8/5/5 in just an epic 2.5 rainbow performance. Approached a triple-rainbow! According to Rotoworld (a site that’s awesome for being able to pull research in the history books vs. my lack of even properly communicating which team won a game sometimes…), first 5×5 since Nicolas Batum in 2012 and only the third player to go 20/10 + 5×5 in the past 40 years after Hakeem the Dream and Derrick the Knee. I’m a little jaded with DC since I used to be a big Hornets fan the first time around, and he was terrible and fat. Then hurt his knee (yet again!) on that dumb Pros vs. Joes show (hilarious though! hurting it against average joes!), but sadly I could only find the promo. Anyway, #OccupyDraymondGreen has pulled yet another article-lead with his multi-cat game, and didn’t even come down too hard in the Saturday loss for 24/11/5/1/1, given a fluky 6 TO. At 13.9/8./7.0 and still improving every season, maybe he can go full Oscar Robinson and give us a season of the O face. Speaking of Os, 13-0!!!!!!!!!!! Man, what a weekend… Here’s what else went down in fantasy hoops action, plus The 7 Ahead for week 8:

What’s up Razzballers? Peter Kap here for your daily recap. I’ll be handling the Wednesday night recaps this season. I’ll try to be as funny and interesting as JB, but he’s got big shoes to fill. Seriously, dude wears a size 17 or something. JB’s shoes look like Shaq’s cell phone at the 2005 All-Star Game.

It’s still in the early goings of the season, but what a difference an offseason makes. The Knicks are, um, I hate to say it, watchable. I’m not declaring them a playoff team yet, but they are at least playing better together. They’re are a few more Knicks deserving to be on your fantasy roster this year. Carmelo Anthony is finally healthy, Robin Lopez has played well, and Kristaps Porzingis and Jerian Grant have had nice starts to their rookie seasons.

Now the Knicks are still going to Knick (For example: Melo dribbling out a shot clock violation at the end of the first half last night; Derrick Williams missing wide open dunks, etc.), but they already have road wins against the Bucks and Wizards, and were up on the Cavs at the half, before losing by 10. Hey it’s a step in the right direction.